The West Asia Post: Gaza youth to risk their lives fleeing from dire reality

Living in Gaza is not easy... More than a decade of an Israeli-enforced blockade has brought the tiny coastal enclave on its keens... Tel Aviv sealed its borders with Gaza after Hamas took power in 2007... Tel Aviv considers Hamas a terrorist organization and suffered greatly from its terror attacks... Israel says the closure is the only way to safeguard Israel... But the entire populace of Gaza is paying the price of this decision... For the two million people living there, earning a salary is more often a dream than a reality...Youth unemployment is close to 60%... Nearly half of the population relies on humanitarian aid to survive... Leaving Gaza is extremely difficult... Movement of people is highly restricted... And even formal foreign institutional invitations may not be enough to get you out... Many have tried several times - both using official and illegal channels... More than 30,000 Palestinians abandoned Gaza in the last decade and as long as the situation remains the same... Many will keep trying, despite the risks... The illegal way is expensive and dangerous... It can cost up to 3,000 USD per person with neither a guarantee of succeeding nor remaining alive... If citizens of Gaza want to get out legally, they must submit their application to the Israeli security which decides if the case stands or not... It can take weeks to receive an answer, which is very often negative... Corruption within Gaza is an obstacle too... With officers demanding bribes to submit applications... The very few who succeed are afraid to travel back to Gaza to meet their families... There is no guarantee that they will be allowed out again... No wonder the Palestinian coastal enclave is often referred to as the world’s largest open-air jail... But leaving is never a happy choice... The majority of Palestinians who manage to leave Gaza, do so out of necessity... They see it as the only option to actually build a future... But wherever they are, they consider Gaza their home... And their dream is to be able to see it free and prosperous one day...